Visual effects firm says that Disney contracted with people who stole the technologyThe company was slapped with a lawsuit on Monday by a visual effects company, which claims that its technology was misappropriated for “Beauty and the Beast,” “Guardians of the Galaxy” and Avengers:“[I]n all of the film industry and media accolades about the record-breaking success of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ and the acclaimed cutting-edge digital MOVA Contour technology that made the film’s success possible, nowhere is it mentioned that the patented and copyright-protected MOVA Contour technology was stolen from its inventor and developer, Rearden LLC, and its owner Rearden Mova LLC,” the suit reads.Nowhere is it mentioned that although Disney had previously contracted with Rearden LLC and its controlled entities on four previous major motion pictures to use MOVA Contour and knew of a Rearden Demand Letter to one of the thieves demanding immediate return of the stolen MOVA Contour system, Disney nonetheless contracted with the thieves to use the stolen MOVA Contour system.

Four different “credit repair” operations have been ordered to pay a total of more than $2 million in penalties for allegedly tricking people into thinking their bad credit could be easily fixed.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced today that it filed complaints and proposed judgments against Prime Credit, LLC, IMC Capital, LLC, Commercial Credit Consultants, and Park View Law, …

The walls surrounding Romaldo Esqueda were blank, covered in a layer of glossy gray paint. The mural had taken shape in his mind, filling the canvas. More than 500 feet of foam posters, nailed to metal stands in quadrants of four, were scattered Saturday in Precita Park in the Mission for the 21st annual Urban Youth Graffiti Arts Festival. The aging artists can’t sprint away from the police officers anymore, and the allure of dark alleys has faded with early morning clock-ins to their day jobs. [...] they come here, to the sun-drenched park with a live DJ and a line of volunteers serving sliced strawberries and hotdogs, every year to paint. By noon, when the event was scheduled to start, nearly every board had already been tagged with the word ‘reserved.’ Small clouds of marijuana smoke pushed upwards as the artists lit up and appraised their posters. “I wouldn’t call this exciting, per say,” Esqueda said, pausing to peer at a design sketched on a piece of notebook paper. Faint words from a tech conference — the boards were former signs donated by the Moscone Center — were barely visible underneath. Modern funk, Esqueda called the mural, like the designs he had once spray painted on abandoned shop walls near Ocean Beach. San Francisco Public Works spends more than $20 million annually to scrub graffiti and tagging from city walls. [...] Robert Louthan, a professional painter and volunteer with Precitas Eyes, an mural arts nonprofit in the Mission, said the response was too harsh. [...] when someone tags a liquor store window, all other graffiti artists get a bad rap. A rainbow of acrylic paint cans was lined up in the grass, and a handful of parents and children waited to leave their mark.